South American athletes are ready for World Cross Country Championships

Last weekend with one month to go to the 33rd IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Saint-Etienne/Saint-Galmier, France, South America staged the 20th edition of its Area Cross Country Championships, at the Golf Club in Montevideo, Uruguay (19 - 20 Feb).

The course was tough, and so was the heat in the capital of Uruguay, but Colombia, with a small team managed to take 3 individual gold medals, all in the men’s races. Brazil and Peru won 2 golds, and Chile took the other event.

In the team classification, Brazil won 3 events, Peru 2, Argentina, Chile and Ecuador 1 each.

Junior star emerges

Every champion, individual or team, will represent South America at the World Championships, and perhaps the main hope will be Peru’s Yessica Quispe, who last year revealed her great running talent when winning 3 events at the Area Youth Championships in Guayaquil.

Quispe, born in Cusco on 21 June 1987 has personal bests of 2:07.38 (800m), 4:13:53 (1500m) and 9:19.92 (3000m). Last year she only managed to finish 10th in her heat in 1500m at the World Junior Championships, so now, with more experience under her belt, she feels confident.

“I’m very happy because I came here looking for the gold medal. The race went as planned, but I suffered the heat. Now I will go to France with high expectations”, said Quispe.

The only champion to repeat their win from last year was Chile’s Susana Rebolledo in the Women’s short race. Rebolledo was beaten by 1 second by Brazil’s Lucélia Peres in the long race, which proved to be one of the most exciting competitions of the weekend.